Wiener Library Blog

Earlier this summer the Wiener Library partnered with the Oxford German Network to participate in the annual German Olympiad. At the prize-giving ceremony, which took place in the Divinity School of the Bodleian Library on 23 June 2015, author Michael Morpurgo spoke and awarded prizes to schoolchildren, undergraduates and postgraduates for their entries in the various 2015 OGN competitions.

Over 60 schoolchildren from Year 5 upwards attended to collect their prizes for poems, stories, raps, cartoons and films in German. The prize sponsored by the Wiener Library was awarded to undergraduates who translated a letter about the Dresden bombings into English. The joint winners were students Oliver Grey and Alice O'Donoghue, and their winning translations can be read below.

The event's organiser, Professor Katrin Kohl of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford University, says she started the Oxford German Network to promote the teaching of German in schools and universities. The Oxford German Olympiad is now an annual competition attracting entries from across the UK.

'The teaching of German has really been suffering in schools, and indeed there is a crisis in modern languages teaching across the UK,' she says. 'The aim of the Oxford German Olympiad is to extend children’s experience of what modern languages is about, particularly showing them the cultural dimension of languages, which is neglected in the school syllabus'. In order to encourage a wider cultural understanding of the German language, the Wiener Library looks forward to future cooperation with the Oxford German Network.